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Friday, February 20, 2009

Oven Dried Tomatoes

I have definitely been blessed this year with an abundance of tomatoes. The tomato plants that I planted in the fall have served me well (that is the tomatoes that great, big, huge mutt hasn't eaten!) but my CSA has also been sending me some. As an added bonus when I visited Jaden from Steamy Kitchen I left her place with a bag of sweet little juicy tomatoes.

Well, all of these tomatoes have been adding up on my counter and I had to do something with them before they rotted. The large ones were processed using my food mill and frozen for sauce and the little ones I had decided to dry them. I knew that sun drying was not going to work out but had heard that you could easily dry them in the oven. I consulted my favorite resource...Twitter! Follow me here! and Sandy from Eat Real gave me exactly what I was looking for.

I washed and dried the tomatoes. Threw out any of them with blemishes. I first did the Roma's I had. Sliced them and tossed them in olive oil and salt and pepper. Placed them on a baking rack and turned my oven on to 225 degrees. And I cooked them...and cooked them. I checked on them about hourly and turned them over half way through. I think in total they probably cooked for about 3 hrs.

The next ones I did were the cherry tomatoes. I halved them tossed them with the olive oil, salt and pepper and threw them in...

Almost done...

Done:

These are so delicious! I am storing them in the fridge right now covered in oil. I figured to help preserve them this is the best way! I have been using them on salads and in a pasta sauce that I will post later. They can be used in the exact same way as sundried tomatoes!!!

Oh and a Happy Belated birthday Mom...did you get the flowers I sent (just kidding!)?

Judy, your tomatoes make me feel like crying, they're so pretty. My little garden with its withered tomato plants is buried under half a foot of iced-over snow. I guess I'll live vicariously till I get to put in my own plants. Lucky you, with all those tomatoes for pasta and salads. (I tend to let mine get really, really crispy and then eat them all directly off the baking sheet. Shame on me.)